cat people

Part of the horror remake craze of the early ‘80s, Paul Schrader’s take on Cat People never quite fit with the more conventional reboots like The Thing or more contemporary reimaginings like An American Werewolf in London. First of all, producer Val Lewton’s 1942 original was never all that conventional in the first place.

As directed by noir specialist Jacques Tourneur, the film was only tangentially a horror film to begin with, dealing with repressed sexuality and psychological fears with a level of subtlety rare in genre films at the time. Schrader’s remake amps up the eroticism, adds some mild S & M and an entirely new mythological back-story. If not an outright improvement, it’s at the very least an interesting interpretation of the original story, but one that never knows quite how to maintain its status as a “horror film.”

Irena (Nastassia Kinski) arrives in New Orleans to meet her brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell), reunited after growing up in separate orphanages. Paul’s intentions seem sexually perverse from the start, and it’s pretty obvious he’s one of the mythological cat people presented in the film’s beautiful opening sequence. Irena snubs his advances and hooks up with Oliver (John Heard), curator at the local zoo, who becomes obsessed with her mysterious past and raw sexuality.

It’s explained fairly quickly (and a bit matter of factly) that Paul and Irena suffer from a bizarre curse in which they turn into black leopards after sex and can only return to human form after they kill. Paul has been responsible for chomping on several local prostitutes and sees in Irena the perfect sexual partner. Incest doesn’t seem so bad when the alternative is eating your one night stand.

Cat People is an interesting twist on the typical werewolf story. Schrader’s film succumbs to the standard monster-on-the-loose formula a few times, likely by studio request. But the subtext bubbles to the top in pretty fascinating ways. Kinski is so confident in her sexuality that her nude scenes (which are plentiful) seem anything but exploitive. Schrader makes them essential to the story in such a way that she seems more dangerous in human form than as a cat.

Horror fans will likely be frustrated with the lack of gore (poor Ed Begley Jr. meets film’s most gruesome demise) but Cat People has matured into a much more memorable film than it was at the time of its release. And Scream Factory gives it a magnificent hi-def debut. The blu-ray transfer is one of their best so far and collected interviews with all the principal players (including composer Giorgio Moroder who collaborative score with David Bowie is a real highlight) provide a comprehensive history of the films production.